On Monday, members of the Joint Union Action Committee assembled at the FCT Minister’s gate to express their disapproval of the long-running strike by FCT Primary school teachers, the nonpayment of staff salaries, and the payment of wage awards to healthcare professionals.
Additionally, the workers are calling for Emeka Ezeh, the chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission, to be fired.
According to a previous report by The PUNCH, Rifkatu Iortyer, the Committee’s President, mobilized affiliate unions to participate in a three-day protest against the “blatant refusal of the FCT minister to address salient issues affecting staff” on Thursday. The protest would take place from Monday, June 30 to July 2, 2025.
In order to prevent employees from entering or leaving the Minister’s office, the workers shut the building.
President of JUAC, Rifkatu Iortyer, who addressed workers during the protest, said the Wike-led FCT administration had failed to pay overhead costs, the retired members of staff who were qualified for promotion, and discrepancies in payments of salaries.
“We cannot work when overhead is not released. We held a meeting with one of them and they say is overhead not for the directors? Is that true? Is it not for working? How can somebody as high-ranking as that say that overhead is for directors? It means they don’t even know. But I want them to know that from that overhead is what we use to work. It is a recurrent for office maintenance and other things that should be used for work. But we do not have it.
“I’m especially upset with our members who retired when they were expected to be in a specific cadre starting in 2024. They have no chance at all. In the event that you retire in 2024 as an assistant director, it indicates that they have followed your professional development. Even though you were competent, they stunted you, and that was the end of it.
“Are you aware of your monthly salary? You saw this amount today. You see this amount tomorrow. I have no idea what my pay is. Therefore, we don’t comprehend,” she stated.
The President also bemoaned the administration’s inability to reimburse health personnel for their hazard allowance arrears and the FCT Civil Service Commission Chairman’s decision to halt employee paychecks, calling it an unjust measure.
“Hazard arrears for health workers are not paid.” Money is not being paid to our auxiliary workers, the enforcement squad, the mortuary employees, or the cemetery employees. The commission chairman wrote a letter on March 10th asking for this compensation to be stopped. Is he meant to give us orders like that?
“And as you engage even auxiliary staff, there is a procedure. You let people know you want their salary to stop at so-so amount. You don’t just abruptly stop people’s salary. In this hard economy, is that fair? That is the initiative of the Chairman. And we don’t think it is right,” Iortyer stated.
On his part, the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, FCT Chapter, Audu Akogwu, declared support for the protesters, describing workers who didn’t join the protests as “saboteurs” and “betrayers”.
He faulted the suspension of overhead costs, stating that workers had to buy their own papers and pens to work.
Akogwu also faulted the Minister’s failure to prevail over the Area Council Chairmen to pay striking teachers and workers of the Area Councils, adding that he doubted if there were payments to the Chairmen.
“We are dying; FCTA workers are dying, no overhead. The Permanent Secretaries have been regulated to nothing, the Directors are dead. Staff buy paper before they work. They buy pen before they work. No promotion for 2023, 2024, and today we are in 2025. No training for any staff, how do you want productivity?
“Primary schools are on strike, with local government workers, over a hundred days. Our children are on the streets, and you say you have given the local government bailout funds. The bailout funds you gave them, are they not accountable to you? As a governor, he was the one controlling the Local Governments in Rivers State.
“Why can’t he control the area councils here and put them on their toes to make sure they do justice to the bailout funds he gave them? That fund, I don’t trust it, because if he gave them, the area councils are not more powerful than the Minister himself,” he said.
The Chairman encouraged the Minister to support FCT workers, stating that he would mobilize affiliate union members to close all FCT offices after the “warning” brought on by the protests.
“Anyone who is willing to listen should assist us in persuading him to assist the workers. This is merely a caution. We protested on the first, second, and third days. We will be closing the entire office after that. All of the TUC affiliates in Abuja will be mobilized, I swear. Every FCT office would be closed,” he continued.
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